After the Romney campaign promised not to take a wild risk in picking a running mate, it did exactly that in choosing Ryan. This choice violated the Palin Rule: Picking a VP nominee to compensate for your shortcomings only magnifies your shortcomings. John McCain picked the Alaska Governor because Republicans thought he was a loose cannon on global warming, immigration, and tax cuts. Palin’s performance did not exactly solve the “loose cannon” issue.

Likewise, Republicans don’t trust Romney not to abandon his troops when they come under fire. And after Romneycare and, well, almost everything else Romney has ever said in his political life, why would they for Pete’s sake? Ryan, on the other hand, is trustworthy, loyal, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent, if not courteous and kind in calling for the privatization of Medicare.

This is the kind of crazy Republicans trust, but it’s the stuff that Democratic campaign managers dream about. In 2010, the only thing that worked for my congressional clients was when their GOP opponents supported the Ryan plan. Put simply, the Ryan plan polled worse than gay marriage did in 2004, and that was before congressional Republicans voted in lockstep for it and made it a national issue. Ryan’s plan to turn Medicare into the world’s most complicated coupon plan will become the most talked-about issue in America thanks to Romney putting him on the ticket. God bless you, Mitt.

A Romney adviser bragged to a DC reporter last night that picking Ryan was a “game-change” moment. That didn’t work out so well for Republicans last time, and it won’t work now. As Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg tweeted this morning, “Why on earth does Romney want this election to be about the Ryan plan?”

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